Page 34 of The Summers of Us

I touched the starfish at the same time as Everett, feeling an unrehearsed, dopey grin on my face with each touch.

When we finished, Everett didn’t laugh when I was on my second hand-wash. Or when I checked my forearms for that salty smell and washed a third time. In fact, he joined me.

We made our way to the Reef, coming face to face with rainbows of corals and Nemos, Dorys, and Gills all around them. I was sure Hadley and Blair would think the same considering how many times we’d fallen asleep watchingFinding Nemotogether. I was about to make a joke about how they weaved in and out of the coral, but Everett was standing before the jellyfish tank.

It was dark over there. A large sheet of dark blue outlined his silhouette. Even in the shadows, I knew his hands were stuffed in his pockets.

I joined him in the quiet. These jellyfish demanded a special silence, the way they floated through the water like it wasn’t even there. Their bodies were illuminated by the blacklight, a soft blue outline carving out what we otherwise might have missed.

How could something so beautiful be so dangerous?

I watched Everett watch the jellyfish. His face and that beauty mark on his cheek were lit the same ultraviolet blue. His mouth was open slightly, lost in awe. He was so beautiful, even with that expressionless expression, watching another beautiful creature pulse through the water.

He must have felt my stares, because he turned to look at me. This gave me two seconds to decide if I wanted to pretend I wasn’t just staring longingly or pretend that my own expressionless expression was only from the jellyfish.

In a moment of courage, I kept my face on his, taking back some control with a soft smile. “Your face is a little blue.”

“So’s yours.” He smiled. His teeth shone bright white in the blacklight. “I wish I had a pun for it, but it’s just blue.”

Just blue. If just blue were as beautiful as him, then I hoped for a lifetime of just blues.Just bluelike the very deepest the summer sky gets.Just bluelike the off-brand cotton candy ice cream colored the wrong shade.Just bluelike a dark living room during an afternoon thunderstorm.

Just blue. The haze that kissed us from the moon jelly exhibit at Piper Island Aquarium.

My heart was thrumming too fast. My hands felt cold and clammy. My guard fell to the floor aroundtwobeautiful, dangerous things.

“Blue is kind of ugly,” I said. I knew it would shatter the moment, but ruining nice moments was easier than letting them ruin you.

The look in Everett’s face ruined me anyway. His face fell so subtly that I would have missed it if I hadn’t been so mesmerized by him. My heart went with his face, both of them scorned and lifeless. I’d never seen him look like this, but I should have known I’d make him feel like this eventually. Better to show myself—the poison that hid beneath my guard—sooner and let him run away and save himself before it was too late.

“Come on, let’s go to the Deep Ocean,” I said in an attempt to revive the moment.

Everett followed me quietly downstairs to the next exhibit. It was just as blue, but I felt more comfortable away from the moon jellies. In the two-story showcase tank, small hammerhead sharks, stingrays, and a sea turtle swam around in circles. A school of skinny, silver fish like the ones in the fountain outside carved their own path.

Everett and I had carved our own path as well, swimming between discomfort and delight throughout the day. After what just happened, this tank brought us back to delight. Inside the tankwas a spherical indentation meant to get you closer to the fish.

“I dare you to go inside,” Everett said. “Real peer pressure this time.”

I raised an eyebrow. “Meaning it’s dangerous?”

“No.” He smirked and rocked on his heels.

“Then you go first.”

“Pinky promise you’ll go in, too?” He held his pinky out.

I linked pinkies with him. “Pinky promise.”

He crawled into the tank, an inviting smile on his face. If he could do it, then I could too. I pinky promised, after all. I shrugged and crawled my way into it. It was deeper than it looked. I turned around and rested my back against the clear tank, dizzy from the water’s distortion, paranoid we were going to burst through it. The shape pushed us into the middle. We were pressed into each other on one whole side. My throat felt stuffed with cotton, but not the candy kind.

Everett pointed to the belly of a hammerhead, the gaping mouth of a stingray. A sea turtle swam over us. I gasped and laughed like I never thought I could. I pointed at it, smiling my cheeks into apples. We were wrapped up in anotherjust bluehaze, and Everett watched me instead of the sea turtle.

I wondered if his cheeks were apples, too.

Our three hours were almost up, so we worked quickly through the rest of the tanks. Halfway across the floor, I stopped in my tracks. My pulse quickened so rapidly I felt it in my toes. A chill zapped through me. The cotton feeling came back.

Everett stopped. “What’s wrong?”

“The whale,” I said to our toes. “I’m afraid of whales.”

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